COMPUTATIONAL STUDY OF A VERTICAL-AXIS LOW-POWER WIND TURBINE IN ANSYS FLUENT

Abstract

In mathematical modeling of wind turbine aerodynamics within the ANSYS Fluent software package, the main problem is the choice of a turbulence model. As part of the work, to describe the turbulent flow, the standard and modified k − models were tested, Spalart-Allmaras model, k − model and RNG model for mixing description. The calculations used the control volume method embedded in ANSYS Fluent, where the velocity and pressure fields are linked by the PISO algorithm. Satisfactory agreement between the results of calculation and experiment was obtained when implementing the modified k  − model according to the axial distributions of the longitudinal velocity. This model will be further used in determining the values of the tangential flow direction in the blades of the wind generator and the moment of its rotation.